Comments

this ob struck me as Entomophthorales from the beginning, though I must have never saw fit to make a name proposal. Knowing the host would karate chop a lot of ‘could be’s from the list, but I expect that we’ve only the existing notes and photos to go off of.

I can’t say I care for either your spelling, your grammar, or your condescending tone.

There wouldn’t be an issue if the site let you delete names you proposed that had multiple votes. (Nor if human beings didn’t, by and large, turn into jerks the minute they plugged in a modem; I’ve long since lost count of the number of people that are quite nice IRL but think nothing of publicly flaming, ridiculing, and otherwise abusing anyone they please when online!)

First of all, you seem to be thinking as if the hairs are all separate fruit bodies. In the photo I see three fruit bodies, each a whitish disc with multiple hairs. You have to completely ignore the disk parts for your theory. That is troubling for that theory.

Second, perhaps there are other close relatives of Dasyscyphus that it might be. There is a problem though: 1. My field guide had only one similar species to this, and it was D. virgineus, so I proposed that, in good faith. Now, 2. I must not appear in public to be in any way stupid or incompetent, and certainly it would be unjust for such an appearance to be my “reward” for acting in good faith, so there’s clearly a problem with having that name on here, with my name associated with it, and a strongly negative vote.

Unfortunately, the site won’t let me delete it now so it’s giving me no choice but to defend it as much as I can.

I also have a problem with being accused, basically, of being crazy. Please edit your comment to make it more civil and please keep your personal opinion to yourself. Publicly sharing negative opinions like that of others is not polite, and when the opinion is specifically that the other person is insane, it may even be dangerous to that person’s freedom.

Now, how do you suggest that we solve the problems outlined above? Aside from the one that is easily amended by you editing your previous comment? Perhaps we should cooperate to solve the problem rather than remaining at loggerheads.

If you can’t, I will provide references.
Here’s drawings of Dasyscyphus virgineus/Lachnum virgineum, showing incrusted hairs with straight tips (among other things):http://www.mycokey.com/...

Here are photos of 11 different species of Lachnum. As you can see, the hairs appear white, not hyaline, and not with “heads”:http://www.mycokey.org/...

Why are you so sure that this obs is Dasyscyphus virgineus in particular, and not any other of the many hundred species of white, small and hairy cup fungi among Lachnum, Hyaloscypha, Cistella, Arachnopeziza etc..?

To me, the hyaline, pin-like hairs look like typical immature sporocarps of a pin mold like Rhizopus, Mucor, Spinellus, Pilobolus etc.
Just to give an example of what they can look like, here’s a closeup of a Rhizopus:http://www.mycolog.com/20_Rhizopus_on_nectarine_a.jpg

It’s so sad to read your allegations of “political” votings. They are only existing in your head.

You say you “see that it’s no such thing” but it looks sufficiently like pictures of Dasyscyphus that I don’t think that ID can honestly be ruled out on the basis of the photograph. Which means either you just have a gut feeling it’s something else, or your voting is political in character. As for “if you look close enough”, I looked at it at full zoom and didn’t see anything that definitively rules out Dasyscyphus.

As for my vote’s strength, all of the voting on this one has been distorted for some reason. My vote is artificially strong because the votes against it are artificially strong (as in, much stronger than is warranted by any of the actual evidence supplied by the observer). So why don’t you tell me why your votes are so strong when there’s so little to go on, instead of asking me why mine is?

Of course you can’t find anything in your field guide that resembles a pin mold if it doesn’t include any. Very few field guides do.

Although I can see that you have been playing a ridiculous voting game against both Jonathan’s and my suggestions, I did not vote against Dasyscyphus because you suggested it, but because I see that it’s no such thing. I think you would too, if you look close enough. But I do not claim to know pin molds well enough to suggest a species name, not even a genus. By suggesting a “could be” I’m leaving it open for anyone to make a better suggestion.

I was hoping that you would come forward to explain the features that made you sure enough of Dasyscyphus virgineus to “call it that”, but you still haven’t.

my field guide’s image of Dasyscyphus. More to the point, it does not look like my field guide’s image of anything else.

I find it troubling that some people on this site appear to feel the need to vote against names I propose not because the photos or other data provide strong evidence against the proposed name but, perhaps, merely because of who proposed the name. This has two troubling consequences: it may degrade the usefulness of this site if voting on names is sometimes “politicized” in such a manner, and it may create the false public impression that I’m in some way stupid or uneducated when nothing could be farther from the truth. In particular, it may do so by giving a bogus impression of a widespread consensus against everything I suggest; though in fact this “widespread consensus” is really only two or three people, anyone just casually glancing at the percentages won’t realize this.

I must ask that people only vote against names either to elevate a more specific name over it (e.g. to elevate Amanita frostiana over Amanita sp., voting against Amanita sp.) or when the photos or other information supplied by the observer provides substantial evidence against that proposed identification. Neither of these seems to be applicable in this instance.